Get Involved

Volunteer

Join a community to create a more just and peaceful world

Study Abroad

Explore your world for a year, semester, summer or two weeks

Host a Student

Welcome a high school exchange student into your home


If you are interested in volunteering with AFS, but are unsure about what opportunities are available, please select a link below to read about some of the position descriptions below to see what may interest you and your family.


HOSTING VOLUNTEER
  • The Hosting Volunteer serves as the fundamental local AFS hosting representative. This role is responsible for host family recruitment in a defined area, ensuring contact is maintained with prospective host families, and coordinating the initiation of their application process. Community outreach is an objective for this position in supporting Host Family Lead generation.
  • A Hosting Interviewer determines a host family’s appropriateness to host and evaluates whether the family is likely to have a successful hosting experience by meeting with all family members who will be living at home with the exchange student. If a family is found suitable to host and who chooses to host, the Hosting Interviewer must submit a written interview Form D for that family to their regional AFS office as part of the host family application required by the U.S. State Department.
HOSTING LEAD RECIPIENT
  • A Hosting Lead Recipient receives automatic email notifications when a hosting interest form is completed on the AFS-USA website by an interested person in the Hosting Lead Recipient’s designated area (Chapter or Team). The Hosting Lead Recipient is responsible for ensuring that the lead is contacted by an AFS volunteer within five days and for relaying information about that contact to the regional hosting staff and appropriate hosting volunteers.
  • Although support for AFS participants is provided through several local volunteers as well as regional and national offices, the AFS Liaison is a volunteer identified as the primary contact for an AFS participant for the duration of their program. As such, the Liaison has a role that is extremely important in maintaining the communication link between an AFS participant and the AFS organization.
  • Liaisons are key to the success of the AFS support network by providing ongoing community friendship and support for AFS students and their host families. The Liaison serves as the "first responder" in the communication network connecting with the local AFS volunteer leadership and staff as needed to provide participant support. The most important attributes for a Liaison to possess are
    • a genuine regard for people of all ages
    • the ability to listen and to be objective
    • the desire to learn about other cultures.
  • The liaison is not responsible for solving problems or resolving conflicts for participants and families, but rather to provide support for them so that they can do so themselves.